


dad tony

by hailingstars



Series: irondad one-shots [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Don't @ him, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kid Peter Parker, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Tony is afraid of snakes, Trains, Zoo, fluff without a plot, pointless bio dad fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21963691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailingstars/pseuds/hailingstars
Summary: “Look dad Tony!” he yelled, squirming around in his dad’s too-tight grip. “Look those lights are like polar bears!”Tony had explained to the boy before that his name wasn’t dad Tony. He’d told Peter, on the day they first met, that he could call him dad or Tony, and he’d explained it to him many times since. Somehow, Peter still ended up calling him both names.“Pretty cool, huh?” asked Tony. He pointed to a display of orange and yellow lights. “Did you see the giraffe?”“WHOA! THAT’S AWESOME!”ORTony takes his five-year-old to Christmas at the Zoo and it's really fluffy and cute.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: irondad one-shots [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1217775
Comments: 49
Kudos: 379





	dad tony

**Author's Note:**

> happy holidays!! here's some random, bio dad fluff ! ! !

There was a chill in the air, cheesy Christmas music pumping through the speakers, and fake snow blowing right at him, sticking to his mustache and making the child in his lap giggle and poke at his face.

Fatherhood made monsters out of some men, but for Tony Stark, it’d turned him into a pushover. The type of man who let his kid pull at his facial hair, the type of man who’d been convinced with puppy dog eyes into going to the zoo on the coldest day of the year, the type of man conned into riding the world’s smallest train by his five-year-old son.

His knees were pressed up against the cart in front of his and Peter’s, and he was tempted to give up completely and sit sideways on the damned thing.

Tony held Peter tight as the train turned. Sure, the train was small and slow, but Peter was little and fragile.

“Look dad Tony!” he yelled, squirming around in his dad’s too-tight grip. “Look those lights are like polar bears!”

Tony had explained to the boy before that his name wasn’t dad Tony. He’d told Peter, on the day they first met, that he could call him dad _or_ Tony, and he’d explained it to him many times since. Somehow, Peter still ended up calling him both names.

“Pretty cool, huh?” asked Tony. He pointed to a display of orange and yellow lights. “Did you see the giraffe?”

“WHOA! THAT’S AWESOME!”

A pair of teenagers on a date turned from the cart directly in front of theirs and smiled at Peter’s enthusiasm.

“Hi,” said Peter. “I’m Peter.”

“Hey, Peter,” said one. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Are you liking the train?” asked the other.

Peter nodded his head excitedly, and just like that, he’d made two new friends. Sometimes Peter’s zeal for meeting new people, turning them into friends, scared Tony to death. He worried one day Peter might try to befriend a predator or trust the wrong person, and he stuck, between not wanting to squash the boy’s natural friendliness and protecting him from the cruel world who did not deserve a person as kind as him.

“Guess what?” Peter asked the teens, answering before they even had a fair chance to make any guesses. “My dad Tony gets to dress up for Halloween all year long.”

Same as calling him dad Tony, Peter’s belief that because he dressed up in suits and wore sunglasses and had a mustache, he was constantly in costume wouldn’t leave the kid’s system of belief any time soon. Tony wasn’t sure it he wanted it to.

The train slowed to a stop, and the young couple said goodbye as they climbed down on the platform. Peter jumped off his lap and Tony followed him out of the train, leaping to grab his son’s hand before he got the chase to run off into the crowd.

“So, Pete, what do you want to see now? More lights?”

“No,” said Peter. “I’m pretty cold. Can we go see the snakes and lizards? I bet it’s warm in there…”

There was about fifteen million things Tony would rather do than willing put himself in the same room as multiple snakes, but Peter was looking at him with those big brown doe eyes, and he just couldn’t tell him no.

Ten minutes later they were in a dark, warm hallway, lined with glass cages that held one of Tony’s greatest fears.

“He’s amazing,” said Peter, his gloved hands on the glass. He looked up at Tony when he offered no response. “Don’t you want to get a closer look?”

“Uh, yeah, sure buddy,” said Tony. He crouched down and looked at the black, creepy snake sitting perfectly still in his exhibit. It wasn’t so bad. There was glass between them, but then – “Why is the glass shaking?”

Peter gasped. “See that dad Tony? The glass is cracked!”

“Where?”

“There!” Peter pointed, and when Tony moved to get a better look, Peter jumped at him, grabbing his leg, screaming boo, and laughing when Tony did, in fact, jump.

“Oh, that’s funny, is it?”

“Yeah,” said Peter, still laughing. “I gotcha!”

Tony couldn’t help it. He laughed with him and ruffled the boy’s hair, internally screaming at himself that the glass only shook from the air being filtered into the snake’s exhibit. 

“Ms. Potts told me you were ‘fraid of snakes.”

“Of course she did,” said Tony. He wanted to correct him, like Pepper did, and tell him he could call her Pepper, but hearing him say Ms. Potts was just too damn cute. “Can we get out of here now?”

“Yeah! Let’s go get hot chocolate!”

“Good idea.”

Tony turned, more than ready to ditch the creepy crawlies, but stopped when he noticed Peter stayed put, rocking back and forth on his feet.

“Something wrong?”

“My legs are tired,” said Peter, once again, looking up at him with big brown eyes that were impossible to say no too.

“Alright, you little puppet master,” said Tony, lifting Peter into his arms. “I’ll carry you.”

He liked this better, anyway. Less opportunity for Peter to run off and somehow end up in exhibit with some dangerous cat or bear that Tony would then be forced to wrestle with.

Peter wrapped his arms around Tony’s neck and laid his head down on his shoulder. His legs weren’t the only part of him, tired, then, and Tony was selfishly thankful. Bedtime was always the hardest, always the time when Peter cried for his mother most, and always the time Tony felt most helpless.

Not even Tony Stark could bring back the dead, though for Peter, he wished that he could.

*

Tony stood, with two cups of steaming hot chocolate in hand, and watched Peter squeeze icing out of a tub and onto a cookie. He topped it off with sprinkles, tons of green and red sprinkles, more than the cookie could hold. They were tossed off the paper plate as Peter hurried back to his dad and they left Ms. Claus’s chaotic kitchen together.

Peter choose the picnic table closest to another damn fake snow blower. He giggled as he wiped some off his forehead with the sleeve of his coat, and that was enough to convince Tony they needed to stay.

Peter pushed the paper plate with the sprinkle cookie across the table. “I made it for you.”

“For me?” asked Tony, in mock surprise, putting down the second cup of hot chocolate on Peter’s side of the table. “Buddy, cookies are for kiddies.”

“I saw you eating cookies yesterday,” said Peter. “Plus, Ms. Potts said I might need to cheer you up, you know, because…”

He trailed off, and Tony wondered if it was because he was missing his mother and decided the best way to feel better was by cheering Tony up. That was Peter. A selfless five-year-old.

“Do you ever stop missing them?” asked Peter, a wave of fake snow settling in his hair. “Do you ever stop missing your parents?”

“No, Peter, I don’t,” said Tony. “But guess what?”

“Ummmm, you’re getting me a penguin for Christmas?”

“Uh, no, but that was a nice try. I can still hear my mom sometimes, when you do that goofy laugh you do.”

“My laugh isn’t goofy.”

“Sure it is,” said Tony. Peter narrowed his eyes, fixed his lips in a fake frown. “Ahh, and that right, there? That’s your mom’s frown.”

“Really?” Peter’s face lit up.

“Yep, that’s definitely Mary. I would know. She frowned at me a lot.”

“Why?” Peter titled his head as he asked the question. Another thing Mary Parker liked to do.

Tony changed the subject. That was another story, for another night, and maybe not ever for Peter.

“I’ll tell you what, kid,” said Tony. He split the cookie in half, icing oozing onto his fingers as he did, and handed the bigger half to Peter. “We’ll split it. We could both use some extra Christmas cheer.”

Peter nodded his head in fast bobs and ate the cookie in less than thirty seconds. Most the icing ended up on his face, and Tony had to get creative with a napkin full of fake snow to clean it, as he gave a long yawn.

“Ready to call it a night?” he asked him, tossing the napkin in the trash can.

“Umm, can we do one more thing? Before we go?”

“Name it.”

“Can we go through the light tunnel again? And you have to carry me cause my legs still hurt.”

“You’ll break my back someday, Pete,” said Tony, lifting him up in his arms, and savoring his laugh as they marched through the crowd and towards the tunnel of lights.

“No I won’t.”

“Yeah you’re right. I’m much more likely to drop you first,” said Tony, as he gasped, pretending to lose his grip, only to tighten it

“Hey!” said Peter, between more laugh. “Not funny!”

“That’s for the snake. It’s more than fair.”

Peter’s head was back on his shoulder by the time they walked through the tunnel. Too tired to even lift his head and look around, Peter simply stretched out his hand and tried catch the light.

Tony wished he could catch it for him. Bottle it, save it, like this moment in time. Wished he could turn back the clock, meet his son the day he was born, or bring Mary back from the dead so Peter didn’t have to be sad on Christmas.

He wished all of those things were possible, but since they weren’t, he held his son tight, walked him through the tunnel of lights one last time before they drove home, and hoped that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! I hope your season has been fluffy and bright!! 
> 
> kudos/comments let me know what you think 
> 
> [or come yell at me on tumblr](https://hailing-stars.tumblr.com)


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